Traditionally, when conducting wager-based gaming events in a wager-based game, a player places a wager (representing some amount of monetary value) on a specific wager-based game event, and the wager-based game event is then initiated and wager-based game event outcome is determined. If the wager-based game event outcome corresponds to a “win” for the player, a monetary payout is distributed to the player, typically in the form of tokens, cash, and/or credit.
Many of today's wager-based games are typically designed based on long-standing conventional wisdom that the primary motivation for players to engage and participate in wager-based games relates to the player's expectation of receiving a net positive financial gain. For example, a player may be motivated to bet one dollar on a video slot game because there is a possibility of the player winning a payout which exceeds $1.
Taking into account such conventional wisdom, most wager-based games are configured or designed to primarily offer monetary-type payouts for wager-based game event outcomes. Additionally, such monetary-type payouts are typically unrelated to, and have no effect or influence on, the gameplay portion of the wager-based game. The same is also true for hybrid arcade/wager-based games. For example, in hybrid arcade/wager-based games which include an entertainment (e.g., arcade-type) game portion and wager-based game portion, the monetary-type payouts associated with the wager-based game portion are typically unrelated to, and have no affect or influence on, the gameplay of the entertainment (e.g., arcade-type) game portion of the hybrid arcade/wager-based game.